University of HelsinkiThe conference kicked off with the opening ceremony in the Polarium hall of Arktikum building. The Anthropology Research Team (including Florian Stammler, the Lead of UArctic's Arctic Extractive Industries Thematic Network and a member of the Arctic Sustainable Resources and Social Responsibility Thematic Network) and Johanna Ikävalko, the director of Arctic Centre, have greeted the audience, pointing out the great turnout - more than 300 scientists have arrived to Rovaniemi for the event.
UArctic Members were very well represented among the conference participants with researchers coming from the following member institutions: University of Aarhus, University of Aalborg, University of Edinburgh, University of Iceland, University of Helsinki, University of Oslo, University of Lapland, UiT the Arctic University of Tromsø, University of Jyväskylä, University of Copenhagen, Universitiy of Oulu, University of Eastern Finland, University of Colorado Boulder, University of Eastern Finland, University of Turku, and Tampere University.
Three sessions were organized on the first day. Some of the first day highlights from UArctic Thematic Networks members included a presentation by Francis Joy, a member of the Arctic Anthropology Team, titled "The challenges of appropriating Sámi Sacred Sites into the tourism industry in Finland", discussing how across the northern Fennoscandia, sacred sites have been at risk of exploitation because of how as holy places being connected with Sámi pre-Christian religion and cultural heritage as well as being places of reverence for other local cultures.
Florian Stammler gave a presentation "Herding hunters: Inuit animal husbandry in South Greenland" describing the innovativeness with which Greenlanders approach their domestic animals and herding by using traditional ways of knowing the animals that base on their hunting and gathering culture.